Friday, December 1, 2017

ICC Prosecutor Requests Investigation Into
U.S. Military, CIA for Alleged War Crimes in
Afghanistan

Fatou Bensouda asked judges to authorize an
investigation of reported human rights
abuses in Afghanistan, including allegations
of rape and torture by the U.S. military and
CIA.

By Mike Corder
The Associated Press
November 21, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- NETHERLANDS -The prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court asked judges
Monday to authorize an investigation of
reported human rights abuses in Afghanistan,
including allegations of rape and torture by
the U.S. military and CIA, crimes against
humanity by the Taliban and war crimes by
Afghan security forces.

The announcement marked the first time ICC
Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has gone after
Americans for alleged war crimes and sets up
a possible showdown with Washington. The
United States is not a member state of the
court, but its nationals can be charged with
crimes committed in countries that are
members.

The U.S. State Department said in a
statement that it was reviewing Bensouda’s
authorization request, but opposes the
International Criminal Court’s involvement
in Afghanistan.

“Our view is clear: an ICC investigation
with respect to U.S personnel would be
wholly unwarranted and unjustified,” the
State Department said.

“More broadly, our overall assessment is
that commencement of an ICC investigation
will not serve the interests of either peace
or justice in Afghanistan.”

As well as alleged crimes by American troops
in Afghanistan, Bensouda wants to
investigate the activities of CIA operatives
in secret detention facilities in
Afghanistan and other countries that are
court members.

Bensouda said in a summary of her request
that “information available provides a
reasonable basis to believe” that U.S.
military personnel and CIA operatives
“committed acts of torture, cruel treatment,
outrages upon personal dignity, rape and
sexual violence against conflict-related
detainees in Afghanistan and other
locations, principally in the 2003-2004
period.”

She added that the Taliban and its allies
are suspected of crimes against humanity and
war crimes “as part of a widespread and
systematic campaign of intimidation,
targeted killings and abductions of
civilians” perceived as supporting the
government or opposing the Taliban rebels.

Afghan security forces are, in turn,
suspected of involvement in “systematic
patterns of torture and cruel treatment of
conflict-related detainees in Afghan
detention facilities, including acts of
sexual violence,” Bensouda said.This article was originally published byThe Star
-

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Trump's peace plan will be highly favourable
to Israel and dismissive of the Palestinians
By Richard Silverstein
November 21, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- From
almost the first day of his presidency, US
President Donald Trump
bragged
that he would solve the Israel-Palestine
conflict. Among his claims was that he could
do what no US president had done. He
called it
"the ultimate deal".By
now, most of the world knows Trump is an
empty braggart and that his boasts have
almost no connection to reality.

A vague plan

But over the
past week or so the New York Times and
Israeli media have
reported
that a Trump peace plan is indeed taking
shape. Sources have been vague about the
exact contents of the plan though one common
feature to every report is that the US will
recognise a Palestinian state as part of the
overall deal.

Beyond the recognition of a state, the
deal would offer Palestinians almost
nothing further

Last week, the
Israeli news show Hadashot
laid out the provisions of the peace plan
that had been leaked to it. Beyond the
recognition of a state, the deal would offer
Palestinians almost nothing further.
Jerusalem would not be accepted as
Palestine's national capital. No
settler would have to evacuate a single
settlement, let alone an entire settlement.
Israel would hit a payday in terms of
getting almost all of what it's demanded and
failed to get from previous US
administrations.The
US would recognise most of Israel's stated
security needs, including for the ongoing
presence of Israeli forces along the Jordan
border, the TV report added.It
said Netanyahu, for his part, was pushing
for the retention of overall Israeli
security control in all Palestinian
territory. This is a position Netanyahu has
publicly demanded, and which, if granted,
would underline that the Palestinians would
not be gaining full sovereignty.The
New York Times earlier reported that under
the provisions of the agreement Israel would
open trade with the Arab world and its
airlines would be permitted to overfly Gulf
airspace. Arab states, says the Times,
particularly Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United
Arab Emirates and Jordan "could add their
own commitments, like overflights by Israeli
passenger planes, visas for business people
and telecommunications links."
There would be "land swaps", but considering
that no settlements or settlers would be
removed, it's unclear what land would be
swapped and why. Or as the Times of Israel
summarised the Hadashot report: "The
borders, however, would 'not necessarily' be
based on the pre-1967 lines."

False assumptions

Why, you might ask, would any Palestinian
agree to such a deal? Well, apparently Trump
and Netanyahu believe that Arabs are so
venal that they will sell their birthright
for a few billion Saudi petrodollars.
Sunni Arab states and others would provide
hundreds of millions of dollars in economic
assistance for the Palestinians under the
plan, to help encourage Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to accept
the deal, the report said.I
would venture to say that if you asked any
Palestinian whether, if offered a choice, he
would prefer to be personally wealthy over
his nation achieving full recognition and
sovereignty, we would know what the answer
would be.Such a strategy
follows a longstanding false assumption
by Israel and the US that the Palestinian
problem is an economic one at its root, and
not political. Secretaries of state and
Israeli prime ministers have touted
improvements to the Palestinian economy as
the way to resolve the overall conflict for
many years. This is a false
and insulting premise. But in case you're
wondering how or why the plan was leaked
now... remember that Netanyahu faces
four separate corruption scandals.
He's been interrogated for the sixth time by
Israeli police this week.
Netanyahu is desperate to change the
subject. What better way to do that than by
leaking to the Israeli public that he might
achieve what no other Israeli leader has
ever achieved: lasting peace with Israel's
Arab neighbours.An
op-ed
published by Al Jazeera dismissed the offer
to the Palestinians as not only demeaning,
but also a repudiation of the Saudis' own
2002 peace plan:…The
Kushner deal will not do even minimum
justice to the Palestinian national project.
While the deal offers strategic gains to
Israel, such as ending a Saudi Arab boycott,
it offers only tactical gains for the
Palestinians, such as financial assistance,
prisoners' release, and a silent, partial
freeze of settlement activities outside the
large settlement blocs.The
Kushner deal will practically fragment the
Saudi-sponsored 2002 Arab Peace Plan that
offered Israel full normalisation in return
for full withdrawal from Arab lands occupied
in 1967. By pressuring Abbas to accept the
deal, the Saudi leadership is undermining
its own initiative, accepting to partially
normalise relations with Israel in exchange
for an alliance against Iran.

Saudi message to Abbas

Though the US has suggested that one way in
which its approach is different than
previous peace plans is that neither party
will be pressured to agree. There will be no
threats.
This claim has already been belied by two
separate media reports of threats being made
against the Palestinians if they reject the
deal.In the first
instance, Israeli media
reported
that when King Salman summoned Abbas to
Riyadh for talks last month, apparently the
Palestinian leader pointed out that the deal
being offered was less than any Palestinian
could accept. The Saudis were having none of
it and presumably told him that if he
rejected the deal they would make his life a
living hell. He should, in that event,
resign.
Presumably, that would enable the Saudis to
install a more quiescent figure like
Mohammed Dahlan, now comfortably ensconced
in Dubai, who would do their bidding. In
fact, according to Al Jazeera's op-ed, none
other than Dahlan himself "happened" to have
been invited to Riyadh at the same time
Abbas was there. The Saudi message to Abbas
was clear: If we can't get you to do what we
say, we'll find someone who will.

We've come to see the outlines of what a
Trump deal would involve: The provisions
would be highly favorable to Israel and
dismissive of the Palestinians

Considering that they'd just successfully
forced the Lebanese premier, Saad Hariri, to
resign, the Saudis thought this would
intimidate Abbas. But the leader of the
Palestinian Authority realises if he sells
out the Palestinian cause history will make
a mockery of him.

Last week, the
State Department "miraculously" dusted off
an obscure 1994 law declaring that, if the
Palestinians call for the International
Criminal Court to investigate Israeli war
crimes, the
US must close the PLO mission in Washington
DC. The US has
noted that Abbas' speech to the UN General
Assembly last autumn did just that: It
called for the ICC, which
now included Palestine among its members,
to hold Israel accountable for the massive
loss of civilian life in Gaza during
Operation Protective Edge.

Trump's deal: A sham

Unspoken in these reports was the not so
subtle threat that the US would close the
mission if the PA rejected the Trump peace
plan.Though Abbas
isn't known for having much political spine,
the PLO's former chief negotiator Saeb
Erekat didn't miss a beat in
responding
that if the US did close the Palestinian
diplomatic facility, that the PA would cut
off all communication with the US. That
would certainly put a crimp into Trump's
peace plan.

Creating a viable Palestinian state at
this stage is impossible without
enormous Israeli concessions and this
Israeli government isn't going to do
that-
Prof Stephen Walt, Harvard University

Through all this we've come to see the
outlines of what a Trump deal would involve:
the provisions would be highly favourable to
Israel and dismissive of the Palestinians.
The urge of the latter to summarily reject
the deal would be mitigated by overwhelming
pressure from the Saudi royals to accept it.
Frankly, despite the near universal
consensus from Israel, the US, and Saudi
Arabia that this deal is a good one; and
despite the enormous pressure they can bring
to bear on the Palestinians to accept it - I
don't see how they can pull this off.The
US may be banking on the universal acclaim
they expect from the world to finally see a
serious peace plan accepted by almost all
the parties to the conflict. But I'd bet
that the world will see through the proposed
agreement as a sham being perpetrated on the
Palestinians. Stephen Walt, the Belfer
Professor of international relations at
Harvard University, told me:"It
is hard to believe that Kushner, Friedman
and co. are going to come up with a deal
that would work, because creating a viable
Palestinian state at this stage is
impossible without enormous Israeli
concessions (reversing 40 years of policy)
and this Israeli government isn't going to
do that."

Iran factor

Middle East
observers have
noted
another long-term factor favouring an
agreement: Iran. Both Israel and the Saudis
see Iran as a far more formidable,
intractable obstacle than the Palestinians
are. They believe if they can solve the
smaller problem (Palestine) the world will
look far more favourably on their aggressive
approach to confronting Iran and Hezbollah.
"The Arabs and the Israelis are facing two
enemies, Iran and terrorism, and they must
form an alliance to confront them," a
western diplomat said, speaking on condition
of anonymity. "But this alliance cannot be
established without resolving the
Palestinian issue; Saudi Arabia cannot work
openly with Israel in the face of Iran
before solving the Palestinian issue, and
having the Palestinians themselves involved
directly in such an axis."Though Trump's
negotiators have declared they won't attempt
to force the parties to adhere to a timeline
or a deadline to resolve the matter,
a Israeli media report indicates
Trump has plans to introduce the plan
publicly as early as January.- Richard Silverstein writes
the Tikun Olam blog, devoted to exposing the
excesses of the Israeli national security
state. His work has appeared in Haaretz, the
Forward, the Seattle Times and the Los
Angeles Times. He contributed to the essay
collection devoted to the 2006 Lebanon war,
A Time to Speak Out (Verso) and has another
essay in the upcoming collection, Israel and
Palestine: Alternate Perspectives on
Statehood (Rowman & Littlefield).

Who Gets to Push the Nuclear Button?

Who Gets to Push the Nuclear Button?
Paul Craig Roberts
William Binney is the former National Security Agency (NSA) official
who created NSA’s mass surveillance program for digital information. He
says that if the Russian government had conspired with Trump, hacked
the Democratic National Committee’s computer, or in any way influenced
the outcome of the last US presidential election, the National Security
Agency would have the digital evidence. The fact that we have been
listening to the unsubstantiated charges that comprise “Russiagate” for
more than one year without being presented with a scrap of evidence is
complete proof that Russiagate is entirely fake news.
The fake news originated with CIA director John Brennan and FBI
director Comey conspiring with the DNC in an effort to discredit and
unseat President Trump and at a minimum prevent him from damaging the
vast power and profit of the military/security complex by normalizing
relations with Russia.
Consider what this means. The directors of the CIA and FBI made up a
totally false story about a newly elected President and fed the lies to
the presstitutes and Congress. The presstitutes never asked for a drop
of evidence and enlarged the Brennan/Comey lie with a claim that all 17
US intelligence agencies had concluded that Russia had interfered. In
actual fact, a handful of carefully selected people in three of the
agencies had prepared, perhaps under duress, a conditional report that
had no evidence behind it.
That it was fake news created to control President Trump was
completely obvious, but corrupt security officials, corrupt senators and
representatives, a corrupt DNC, and corrupt media used constant
repetition to turn a lie into truth.
Here is Binney: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/12/creator-nsas-global-surveillance-system-calls-b-s-russian-hacking-report.html
See also: https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/11/19/top-nsa-whistleblower-claims-russiagate-fake-increase-war-spending.html
Having shoved Trump into the militarist camp, his enemies have turned
on Trump as an unstable, volatile person who might push the button.
Senator Bob Corker (R, TN) and Senator Chris Murphy (D,CT) are using the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee to portray President Trump as a
quixotic person who shouldn’t have his finger on the nuclear button. We
have gone full circle, from Trump who wants to defuse nuclear tensions
to Trump who might push the button.
If Senators Corker and Murphy were really concerned and not just
orchestrating a new way to attack Trump, they would bring out the fact
that Russiagate is a hoax that has made nuclear war more likely. As I
have pointed out, Washington has convinced Moscow that Washington is
planning a surprise nuclear attack on Russia and also collecting Russian
DNA for a tailored Russian-specific bio-weapon. I cannot think of
anything more likely to trigger nuclear war than the escalated tensions
that Russiagate is preventing Trump from reducing. See: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/11/13/will-america-survive-washington-paul-craig-roberts/
For the record, contrary to the erroneous assertions of “nuclear
experts,” the president cannot simply order a nuclear attack. The
president either has to accept a Joint Chiefs war plan and order a
launch when the military is ready or he has to accept the advice of his
national security adviser to launch in retaliation for incoming enemy
ICBMs. If a president simply ordered a nuclear strike, he would be
ignored.
If it is not the president who must make the nuclear decision, who is
it to be? The military? We should be thankful that that was not the
case when the Joint Chiefs pressured President John F. Kennedy to
approve a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union.
The question who should have launch authority is an easy one to answer. No one.
If nuclear missiles are incoming, launching does not protect you.
You are already going to be destroyed. Why destroy the other side of
the world in an act of revenge. It is pointless.
There is no such thing as a preemptive strike that prevents retaliation.
Nuclear war is an act of insanity. Nothing can justify it.
The purpose of diplomacy is to prevent war. However, ever since the
Clinton regime attacked Serbia, US diplomacy has been used to cause
wars. During the 16-years of George W. Bush and Obama the US destroyed
in whole or part seven countries, killing and maiming millions of
peoples and producing millions of refugees. Not a single one of these
wars was justified. Everyone of these wars was based in lies. The last
US government that showed any respect at all for truth was the George
H. W. Bush administration.
Before launching each of these acts of unprovoked aggression,
Washington demonized the leader of the country. To get rid of one
person, Washington did not flinch at murdering large numbers of people
and destroying the infrastructure of the country. This tells you that
Washington has no morality. None. Zilch. Therefore, Washington is
capable of launching a preemptive nuclear strike. Back when nuclear
weapons were puny by today’s standards, Washington nuked two Japanese
cities while Japan was trying to surrender. That was in 1945, a
lifetime ago. Whatever bits of morality that still existed then are
long gone.
Today a CNN editor-at-large named Chris Cillizza, published online an
article titled, “There’s a massive moral vacuum in the country right
now.” At last, I thought, a presstitute has realized that Washington’s
constant nuclear threats against other countries shows a complete
disrespect for the life of the planet and indicates a moral vacuum. But
no, the presstitute is talking about sexual harassment, especially that
of Roy Moore in the 1970s. And it is all Trump’s fault. How can he
lead when he harasses women himself? http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/16/politics/roy-moore-mcconnell-trump/index.html
President Trump intended to normalize relations with the other major
nuclear power. He has been prevented from doing so by the
military/security complex, the DNC, and the presstitutes.
Cillizza says sexual harassment is a “very big” consequence of
Trump’s election. I am left wondering if CNN’s editor-at-large
considers nuclear war to be as serious as sexual harassment.

About Me

ROLAND SAN JUAN was a researcher, management consultant, inventor, a part time radio broadcaster and a publishing director. He died last November 25, 2008 after suffering a stroke. His staff will continue his unfinished work to inform the world of the untold truths. Please read Erick San Juan's articles at: ericksanjuan.blogspot.com This blog is dedicated to the late Max Soliven, a FILIPINO PATRIOT.
DISCLAIMER - We do not own or claim any rights to the articles presented in this blog. They are for information and reference only for whatever it's worth. They are copyrighted to their rightful owners.
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